Five Dumbest Renovation Fads - From CNNMoney.com

I saw this great piece on CNNMoney.com today - the Five Dumbest Renovation Fads. It explains how "great rooms," decadent kitchens, huge garages, porches and lighting can ruin a home when poorly done, and offers a new take on how to approach each to improve the quality of your living space. I really agree with most of the points it makes. It's nice to see that people are starting to rethink the misguided design fads and the McMansion approach to housing.

I'll add one more to the list - bedrooms. Huge bedrooms are a costly waste of space. You either don't use them, or you find you don't know your kids because they are hiding in them. I think bedrooms are for sleeping, and not much else. Smaller, more intimate spaces designed for that purpose can help us refresh ourselves peacefully and leave a little extra floorspace for the rooms we spend the most time in, like kitchens and living rooms. And the space we save also helps us keep down the overall size and cost of our homes. McMansions are not only too expensive to build, they're costly to heat and cool, making them hard on the planet as well as our wallets.